ASUS Barebones Deals Too Good To Be True?

I have been shopping for a Z83V for my brother, and have found many barebone kits at around, or slightly less, than $1100 (with 1.7 P-M, DVD Dual Layer, and Bluetooth). I know customer service is worthwhile, but even the baselines configurable models at most resellers are $500 to $600 more. I then just did a check on the other Built on Asus models and found the same to be true. Is there something I am missing? Has anyone bought their ASUS this way? I plan to just buy the hard drive, memory, and wireless card for him.
Any experiencies or comments?

PS - Anyone know if resellers will just sell warranty service upgrades for an ASUS bought elsewhere?

 

The resellers will probrably only sell warranties for laptops they built, because they put their effort and guarantee for each and every part.

The true barebones is just the chasis and does not contain the CPU, HD, OD, RAM, Wireless and.....I think thats it. Perhaps some include a OD or RAM, that could be a reason for the price difference.

Many people buy barebones and make it themselves, its not hard at all!

 

I purchased a Z83V barebones, I had bought Memory, cpu, memory, hdd and a intel wireless card. There is a base 1 year warranty from Asus on the machine. I have a 3 yr warranty on the cpu, and lifetime on the memory, and 3yr on the Hdd. The rebates are throught the manufacturer rather than the reseller.

 

I can understand about the warranties, though I woudl guess they make good margins on the them beyond the laptops themselves.

Some of the models are pure barebones, but some come with the processor (generally 1.7) which makes them an even better deal. Take a look at this from Ecost (I know not the best reseller):

http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail~dpno~633465~Action~Detail.asp

I would probably sell and upgrade the memory, hard drive and wireless card, but that just drops the effective price even lower....

 

Nope......

 

Ofcourse we do. We are all young millionares. We have 10 mexicants working (no offense to anyone with spanish or mexican herritage i am jus joking) and we all drive ferraris. Thats why we all sit on these forums day and night becuase our life is set and we are bored computer giants. How much do you think we make?? bout 10-15% before expenses. Then you have to take into account the costs of having a store and employees and we are left with 5% if even. Not all is as it seems. Dell makes about the same sometimes less.

 

I only made the comment about margins purely in relation to whether or not a given reseller would have an interest in seller warranty support seperate from individual laptops. At the point where the laptop is already purchased, where it was purchased is irrelevant if their is a margin, just like any other product. Margin, incentive. No margin, no incentive. It is possible that reseller warranties are lose taking products that resellers offer to attract business as part of an overall pricing strategy. In that case it would make sense not to offer warranties seperately. If that was the case, then you could simply say so.

Every piece of research ever done on extended warranties for electronics has shown a large margin. That is why consumer advocacy groups do not recommended them. In this particular instance this could be wrong for laptops. This is why I used the term "guess." Even if the average benefit was not worth it, I, like many laptop buyers, would likely buy them simply because of risk aversion. This is why I inquired with the hope that resellers would offer warranties as a seperate product that I would purchase.

 

Look at it this way. For an extra 99$ you can have 2 more years. If your lappy breaks motherboard, lcd or worse something that is not covered becuase your vendor does not extend manufacturer warranty onto your purchase (cpu, ram and hdd are 3 years) and only covers for the duration of the extended warranty not offering 3 year labor or 3yr tech past the first year youre out of luck (we and most offer 3 years regardless of extended warranty or not on parts that are covered past one year by manfacturer) you loose any way you look at it. If you spend 1500$ on a laptop and not buy a warranty for 50$ for an extra year you will kick your self in the head if your mobo breaks 1.1 years later. Why pay for car insurance? Most people in he states pay more in premiums to the insurer then the insurer pays for most peoples coverage. Its not about most people. Its all about the 5% that is in the hi risk category. With laptops you cant determine who is hi risk. You get a laptop and you pray it last longer then its life expectancy. With out a warranty you get only the laptop and no insurance. But yes you are right. Selling warranties is a good 10% of our total profit......It also depends from vendor to vendor. Some dealers buy their warranties from asus. Some offer their own, those who can anyways....

 

I don't buy that. Dell still makes money on the systems they ship with those huge coupons, otherwise they wouldn't run them so frequently. That means that for an average system price without coupons, Dell's making upwards of 30% profit on their notebooks. And Michael Dell IS a millionaire. The overcharge rate is one reason why I wouldn't want to :dell: I'll stick with :asus:

 

I buy it. It's all about volume sales. Even if you cut your profit margins to 1-2% of a product and then sell a bazillion (is that a number?) then you'll definitely make your cut. Man, Dell is everywhere- schools, libraries, companies, homes... sold online, over the phone, on tv, and even at costco. They also make their money in all sorts of other products, components, third party software, and warranties that they cover on their own. They've got their bases covered. 30% on a laptop? I dont think so, but then again, I'm sure they're getting their product a lot cheaper than any reseller here on this forum, due to their quantities.

 

Not that I like Dell, but one of my best friends managed the refurb arm of Dell and told me they only made about a 5% margin (averaged) on the new stuff. It’s all about volume.

 

Correction. I am pretty sure Little Mike is a Billionare. BUt you better believe that some of those systems are sold slightly over cost especially the ones with all the coupons and the ones below 600$. dell makes his money on the business side. The gold overnight biz warranty is 500$ or somewhere there. Many business dont even keep those laptops over 2 years. Take the really cheap systems they sell. If they sell those 600$ laptops and make 50$ on them. They will spend about 10$ supporting them. The people that buy them will either call in and get instructions from india on how to reinstall windows at a cost of like 1$ an hour or never call in becuase they dont know how to reach dell. If we can afford to sell something for a 50$ margin and provide our base warranty believe me dell can afford to sell it 20$ above cost just to sell it and provide their "base" warranty. A little different ofcourse as our buyers will not be calling in for soft support which is the plus side of the hi end market. But i dont work for dell so i dont know. From what i hear from various employees dell can and will sell at or slightly above cost just to get rid of stuff. They can do that. We do it rarely but we do it.

 

Eddie, doesn't it feel good to sell quality? I mean, Mikey Dell has to live with the guilt of selling that crap. You, my friend, might not be a millionaire, but at least you can hold your head high.

 

It feels good but .......it would feel better if my shoes were made out of solid gold and the women loved me for my money. At the moment neither is reality.